B Y - V I N C E - D O O L E Y

Sanford Stadium was dedicated in 1929, two weeks before the stock market crash. Back then, it seated 33,000. Today, it seats 86,117, and the quality of the teams that play there makes Georgia a perennial top 10 finisher in football attendance. Game of the Century: Georgia's 26-21 come-from-behind victory over Florida that made the 1980 National Championship possible. Dan Magill is known as the "Greatest Bulldog of All-Time" for his 30 years as sports information director, 26 years as secretary of the Bulldog Club, and 33 years as men's tennis coach. His teams won 706 matches and two NCAA titles. Both the tennis complex and football pressbox are named for him. No coach has won as many national titles at Georgia as Suzanne Yoculan, whose Gym Dogs have 5 NCAA trophies, including undefeated championships in 1998 and '99.

s I walked across Herty Field the other day, I was struck by how much Georgia athletics has changed since 1900—and by how appropriate it is that, as the 20th century draws to a close, UGA is celebrating its greatest sports year in history with four NCAA titles in 1998-99.

Herty Field was the Sanford Stadium of its day, but 100 years ago Georgia athletics was just a curiosity. Chemistry professor Charles Herty had just started the football program in 1892, and you couldn't call it a spectator sport. If 100 fans showed up to sit on a couple of rickety wooden bleachers, that was a good crowd. Today, 86,117 fans fill the stadium on football Saturdays, and intercollegiate athletics is a key element of school spirit and a rallying cry for UGA alumni.

I trace this passion for sports back to the World War II era when Heisman Trophy winner Frank Sinkwich and his backfield mate Charley Trippi helped put Southern football on the map. Herschel Walker brought it to a fever pitch in the 1980s, but UGA athletics isn't just about football—and it isn't just about men's sports. Since Liz Murphey took over our women's sports program in 1978, the Lady Dogs have become a powerhouse in their own right.

It's easy—imperative, in fact—for an athletic director to get caught up in attendance, gate receipts, and winning championships. Georgia is always in the top 10 in football attendance, we're one of maybe 30 Div. I-A athletic programs in the country that operate in the black, and in the most recent Sears Cup standings that rank the nation's winningest athletic programs we were No. 2.

But the sum total of what Georgia athletics means to this University—and to this state—is much more than that. Athletics is one of the things we do in the name of the University of Georgia. It's the way we fly our colors. It's one of the primary reasons UGA people say:

"I bleed Red and Black!"

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